Reviews (11)

Upon submitting my Learning Logbook, I was asked for feedback. I advised that I thought a review of techniques, rather than a journal largely comprising of personal reflections, would be more useful. I was then told in an extremely passive-aggressive manner that I-- and this is a direct quote-- "don't understand the course. You're obviously in Maths or Science, so you don't like doing things outside what you already know, but we don't cater just to the picky students." I'm an English/Drama major. I also got a 7 for the logbook, and a 6 overall, so perhaps I understand the course better than that tutor. What a joke.

The lectures were poorly structured and presented, and a waste of time. The overly long time set aside for them was unnecessary.

In terms of content, the course is packed with useful learning theories and approaches crucial to developing good teaching practice. However, the course is poorly executed. There was seldom a week where there was enough tutorial time to cover the planned activities and discussion. Yet, we were still required to complete the activities on our own time without any guidance (and discuss them in our learning log book).

This brings me to my biggest gripe: the learning log book. A wonderful idea, but expecting us to spend hours and hours on it each week? Absolutely pathetic. I spent more time filling out the log book than I have ever spent on any assessment piece I have ever done in any course. It's awful.

One final comment: whoever is posting on the Blackboard page for this course should apply the learning theories to learning proper spelling, punctuation and grammar. What a mess. Some of the communication posted on there looked like a seven year old wrote it. Stop giving teachers a bad name and practice what you preach.

I thoroughly enjoyed EDUC2716 this semester. I thought the course content was both beneficial as a preservice teacher and interesting as a learner, the assessment was appropriate and the course objectives were clear. Overall I thought it was very well structured! - I can't think of any negatives!

I found this course to be very interesting, albeit quite heavy and rushed in regards to the course materials. It opened up a lot of questions regarding my future teaching practice and opened up a lovely dialogue between myself and other undergraduate education students. The mix of lecturers was very interesting and quite enjoyable. In terms of tutors, my tutor Steven Lewis was enthusiastic and passionate about teaching and this made the tutorials very enjoyable.

Semester taken

Semester 1 - 2014

Your program/major

Bachelor of Creative Arts/Education (Secondary)

Positives

Course content

Variety of lecturers

Lecturers and tutors responded to student feedback and altered components of the course throughout the semester

The way that the course was set out was in a way that the content was crammed into the 2 hour lecture, but then at some times, I felt I learned a lot more from the 1 hour tutorial than anything from the lecture. This course was at times very challenging, in that there was a lot to process in such a short amount of time.

The textbook was the most helpful resource besides the tutors, and I felt it was very useful.

The assessment pieces were challenging in that no one was given a certain way that they wanted things written on set out in the assessment. Also, it is said that for one subject at university, you should spend around 6 hours a week on it. This was blown way out of the water, as I spent so much of my time on the logbook. I am also aware that some other people in the course also feel this way.

The blackboard links to the lecture notes were sometimes not available, and if you weren't at the lecture you would miss out on some content. In saying this, I think the content learned throughout the course was very helpful in that you could see it in practice in the practicum classes that we had during the semester.

The course content was (and will be) very useful, and offered an interesting introduction into the theories behind learning. This course has only made me more excited to teach. The assessment was well constructed, and actually required a thorough understanding of course content (a rare occurrence in my education subjects thus far). Adequate guidance was given prior to the due dates of assessment - I never felt 'in the dark' when completing assignments. I found the Learning Logbook incredibly helpful; it ensured I was learning content as it was taught, and allowed me to consider its applications the classroom. I felt the course was structured well, but at times it seemed to jump between content and learning theories; perhaps the order in which theories were presented could have been structured better. The textbook was excellent, and will certainly be of use when I'm teaching (if not in education courses down the track).

I found EDUC2716 to be a really good stepping stone from EDUC1702. It was great to learn so much new information or build upon what I knew from last year. In saying that though, the lectures really were overwhelming. I found there to be too much content in the lectures and found myself zoning out frequently for a breather. Due to all the content presented in the lecture it would have been nicer to have a longer tutorial, where we could all unpack what was discussed and break it down together.

Only have the 50 minute tutorials, seemed like a waste of time, especially once we started our seminar assessments. They were the only thing we would get done in some tutorials and we were left to try and decipher the lecture content solo.

I found the assessment to be different than other courses, but more engaging. I think the learning logbook was a good way of making sense of the themes covered in the lectures, but it was very ambiguous each week, and would generally take me about three to four hours to complete all the tasks for the week.

The seminar I found to be quite useless, although we did get to experience being up in front of the class and pretending to teach, it was very difficult to complete the task as a group. I feel as though it was not explained clearly enough and the task was very ambiguous again. It also took up a lot of tutorial time, which was detrimental to understanding the lecture content.

The essay was again ambiguous, it was a very confusing task and I felt as though we didn't really discuss it in class, it was generally a last minute thing two minutes before the tutorial ended. This was a difficult task and I feel as though if the tutorials were longer, you would be able to discuss the lecture content in more detail, therefore allowing us to understand how to put the theory into practice for the seminar better and then allow for those theories to be collated into themes for the third task.

It was a very beneficial to gain a more developed understanding of educational psychology and the theories, concepts and themes behind it. The tutors and lecturers were very enthusiastic.

I found this course's content very interesting. I liked getting back to the essence of what teaching touches i.e. The Brain; I will definitely keep what I learnt in mind for further studies.

The content needed defined objectives because a lot of it overlapped. I know that many topics needed to overlap because that was their nature. But clear objectives for each week (on lecture slides) could have helped me have checkpoints to reach.

I would have preferred the Learning Log books to be due weekly, that way I could receive feedback constantly, not at the end when it was too late to correct my approach to the assessment. That said, I only received ticks on my first LLB, hardly any feedback was given at all, that was disappointing.

I also think the LLB should be in a blog environment. For example a blog on blackboard. It's more efficient to think when typing and to submit. Pictures and media could also have been added if LLBs were blogs.

The lectures were fun and interactive; they were actually the highlight of my day.

I found EDUC2716 to be a mixture of positives and negatives. The academic team were amazing, there was a great amount of support for getting through the assessment. However I did find there was just WAY too much information to be taken in. I found that by the end of the semester I was not attending lectures anymore, instead I was watching/listening to them online as I found it much easier to understand and interpret the information on the lecture slides. The learning logbook was enjoyable and an easy piece of assessment to score a good grade in, however the Group Seminar was not so much. There weren't very clear instructions on how to go about the task, and alongside it did not make attending the tutorials very enjoyable ... at all. Finally, the final essay was probably one of the most confusing pieces of assessment I have completed so far in my studies. There was a whole lot of content and knowledge that I felt I did not have.

Overall this course was enjoyable, however the amount of content in each lecture needs to be reviewed, along with the group seminars need to be cut out so more time can be allocated in the tutorials.

The course content for EDUC2716 was extremely interesting and engaging, and applications and links to teaching practices were continuously made evident.

I found that the logbooks were time consuming at first, as the guidlines were quite broad as the nature of the assessment was creative and personal. That being said, the activities that it was based on were relevant to both the theory being covered as well as teaching practices. It encouraged me to really think about what I think being a teacher is all about, and what teaching practices I will use when i become a teacher, which is important!

There was a lot of content jammed into the 2 hour lecture and it was disappointing when the content had to be rushed.

The tutorials were good for consolidating the main themes of each weeks learning, but the seminars often took up lots of time.

The seminars were interesting and engaging however, a useful and fun piece of assessment.

Overall, an extremely interesting course that I enjoyed and gained a lot of useful knowledge that will contribute to my teaching practices in the future.

Wasn't sure what to expect when I took this course on board this Semester.

The course covers a good range of teaching and learning theories and concepts in a comprehensive manner, however, they cram a LOT of content in to the 2 hour lecture slot and this is really hard to touch on and expand on in the short (50 minute) tutorials.

The course staff are generally helpful and attentive to students' needs.

The assessment is a little unusual (and perhaps subjective), mostly in the Learning Logbook which is quite ambiguous. That said, the assessment allows a lot of room for students' creativity. A lot of the learning activities form the basis of the learning logbook. Generally, they are fun and relevant.

At times the course is a little taxing but it is worth doing and I can feel the value of it in the Bachelor of Education programs even if you have no prior knowledge of psychological practice and theory in educational settings.

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